Tales from Deer Camp

So I survived a week in PA with some of W's relatives, a week of snow and rain, and COLD temperatures. Of five layers of clothes while sitting or standing in the woods waiting for deer that never materialized (at least for me.)

Let's start with the early part of the vacation.

With all the snafus dealing with getting my Caliber fixed, it of course wasn't ready when it was supposed to be. Had to leave my mom in charge of getting it picked up from the stupid dealer I will never do business with again. So instead of having my car back in my driveway while I was out of town, it was stuck at the dealer until this past Thursday. Anyway.

W refused to hook up the quad to the trailer and the trailer to the truck on Thanksgiving night. Of course. Said it would only take a few minutes Friday morning....famous last words...instead of leaving at six like he wanted, we didn't leave from dropping the rental car off until oh, 9:30.

So Roxie (short for Roxanne, the GPS unit) had us on the way, and I promptly took a nap. Everything was going fine. We got up to Thomasville, NC or somewhere or another and we needed gas in the truck, and also put some in the quad. Now, as I had my wallet in my hand, I specifically told myself, "Self, do NOT put the wallet down on the side of the truck you'll forget it and that would be a mess." So I did not. I DID however, set it ON THE QUAD, while putting gas into it. Five and a half hours later, we stop for food and pee break, and lo and behold, my wallet is NOT IN MY PURSE. Commence total freak out, because I knew the damn thing was gone, and we were facing the prospect of a five and half hour backtrack trip, on the total lark of a chance of finding the wallet at the gas station or close to thereabouts. I was screaming, because I wouldn't have been able to get on a plane for the trip home, wouldn't have been able to spend any money because we'd have had to cancel both debit cards, plus the Amex that was in the wallet. Luckily, as I was beginning to totally lose it, W FOUND the wallet on the foot area of the quad. It survived I don't know how many miles, even after we had to swerve hard to the left and back to the right when a huge tree branch was in the middle of the road. I was thanking God left and right, it wasn't luck, it was an outright miracle.

After recovering from that, Bubba threw up, luckily in the toilet at McDonald's. He's still not quite right, after a week. Very bad lingering cough, no other problems. W may be taking him to the doc today or tomorrow up there.

The rest of the trip was uneventful with the exception of it being a bit long. Bubba got dropped off at the mall Saturday morning with Grammy for a vist with Santa, the picture is adorable. W and I attempted to shoot my rifle in, to discover it didn't want to fire. Four hours later and a trip to the gunsmith, it was fixed, and I proceeded to hit a great shot into the target, along with a smack to the side of the nose with the scope. OUCH! No bruise, no black eye, lucky me.

Sunday was a loaf day. Slept in, didn't really do much. Early to bed, so we could get up early. Which we did. It was cold. I had tons of clothes on, walked up the hill with W and sat. Saw a buck about an hour in, which W shot at and missed. When I got too cold, I went in to eat and thaw out. Lather, rinse repeat for the week. I never saw a deer again while in the woods. One evening, the big buck came down off the hill into the back yard and I almost got a shot off before he disappeared into the thicket. Spent six plus hours in a tree stand in the snow and wind on the day W shot a doe from the dining room. Two neighbors brought us deer, so we spent Thursday night and all day Friday processing them (and I do mean all day, started cutting/cleaning, chopping meat around eight in the morning, and finished grinding and packaging at nine that evening. Thursday was the skinning and cutting meat off the bone.) 90 percent of the meat was ground up for the multiple things I use ground meat for. We have three nice big roasts, and about 10 pounds of sirloin steaks. Provided W doesn't get a buck while he's still up there, we have probably a hundred pounds or so of ground meat. I'm thankful, even though I didn't get to shoot anything.

I spent Friday night at Grammy's with a still sick and coughing Bubba, who kindly woke me up at almost two in the morning to puke. Didn't get much sleep after that. Got dropped off at the airport plenty early, breezed through security, tho the pricks took my unopened bottle of water. Spent my last two bucks cash on a 20 ounce bottle of soda. The plane out of Atlanta coming to Pittsburgh was late. Keep in mind I had a whopping 35 minutes between flights in Atlanta in the first place. So we didn't take off on time, but the pilot made up some time in the air. However, we landed at 12:45 and my flight out was 1:04. ACK! Luckily I flew in at gate C4 and was flying out of C10. That normally doesn't happen at Atlanta, normally you have to traipse all the way across the airport. Found a place to pee, horked down half a cigarette, raced back to my gate and sat to text W that I had made it. Now normally, I wouldn't have bothered with the smoke, but when I walked past C10 to the potty, there were plenty of people still sitting, so I figured they weren't boarding yet. How wrong was I. As soon as I hit send on W's text, I heard from the little podium dude, "Again, Final Boarding call, so and so and Beachgal!" Holey hell, I ran up there, totally freaked out. I literally JUST made the damn flight. I got my bag in the overhead, (after having to walk back three rows cause some dickhead rudely insisted I not put my bag on his suit which was in MY overhead, when he was sitting across the aisle. Dude hadn't even put his own bag in HIS overhead. I wanted to smack him. The flight was part empty so I moved anyway and had a window seat.) Anyway, I no sooner stowed my bag when the plane started moving.

I settled in with my Grisham book (the new one, it's good) and soon enough we were in Charleston. Found my parents and off we were for yummy food and the drive back to the beach. I did NOT hug my car when I got to their house, tho I was tempted because, dudes, they not only fixed it, they washed it and detailed the inside. Some brownie points there, but I'm still not using that dealer again. I collected the Wii that was kindly left with them to play while we were out of town, however, I forgot my turkey soup.

Got home to dogs who were happy to see me, but kept looking for W. Kitties showered me with kisses as well. Tons of mail sorted and tossed or whatever. I didn't stop for over an hour once I walked in the door. Laundry, cat box, unpacking, yadda yadda. Spent three hours reading emails and blogs. Then crashed. Yesterday was DVR catch up day and some more computer stuff. Finished up the laundry and watched the Steelers pull one out over the cowgirls and then finished my book.

Work not so bad so far, but I've only played catch up with one attorney. This afternoon will be worse I'm sure. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. W is planning on coming home this week, maybe....depends on a lot.